Jon Hunstman's decision to withdraw from the presidential race isn't surprising. Polling consistently showed his support in the low single digits, and he never threatened to attain the front-runner status that most of the other candidates managed to gain however briefly. The reasons given for this vary, but the most compelling is that Hunstman was too reasonable in his positions.
Between his record as Utah's governor and accepting a position for the Obama administration, Huntsman appeared to favor the pragmatism necessary to govern over ideological posturing. Since ideology tends to dominate the "discourse" in primary elections more so than in a general election, and the race already had a pragmatist in the form of Mitt Romney, it isn't hard to see why Hunstman's campaign struggled to gain traction.
What is somewhat puzzling, though, is the reaction of the news media which paints Hunstman's withdrawal as some kind of (to use an NBC anchor's words) "shake up" to the race. It seems to be just another manifestation of the same phenomenon that leads to modest declines in the stock market being labeled as a "plunge", but being able to explain it doesn't make it less annoying. When a candidate's poll numbers are the same (or even less) than the typical margin of error for polling, that candidate's actions are by definition incapable of shaking up the campaign. I know the 24-hour news-cycle is a beast that needs to be fed, but it would be nice if news anchors could be at least a little bit immunized from the lack of rationality that dominates the campaign season.
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